WAR/DRAFT/VETERAN AFFAIRS

Should those working in government and military be expected to obey the U.S. Constitution they have sworn to support and defend?

For instance, in domestic policy Attorney General Jeff Sessions wants to enforce federal drug laws even in states whose voters approved of some drug legalization, a violation of the Constitution’s Tenth Amendment regarding policing authority. The Constitution doesn’t even authorize the federal government to get involved in drugs, period. The AG is also violating the due process clause when he directs law enforcement to steal cash from citizens regardless of whether they are charged with any crimes.

And when it comes to foreign policy, even the military and its Uniform Code are clear on the ideas of swearing or affirming to support the U.S. Constitution and following lawful orders...

British volunteers fighting with Kurdish forces against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in Syria pose a domestic security threat to the UK, a neoconservative think tank claims.

In a new report released on Thursday, the Henry Jackson Society released claims the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, is a “subsidiary” of Turkey’s outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a separatist movement designated a terrorist organization by both the EU and the United States.

The U.S. military is preparing to launch a major military exercise with South Korea in coming days, and faces a dangerous balancing act: How do you reassure allies in the region that you are ready for a war with North Korea without provoking an actual conflict in the process?

North Korea have long been the fly in the ointment, with United States officials dearly wishing they could overthrow Kim Jong-un and install a client regime. Unfortunately for American elites, the Kim Jong-un government both loath and fear the declining superpower and its long-held imperial ambitions. Can the North Koreans be blamed for these feelings? Its leader Kim Jong-un must be aware of the horrendous crimes the US military perpetrated against his country during the Korean War (1950-53). After the first year of the conflict all notable buildings in North Korea had been utterly levelled by the US Air Force. By the end American fighter pilots had committed further war crimes such as destroying a number of North Korea’s dams – the type of offence people were hanged for at Nuremberg. To rub salt into open wounds, the Americans gloated about the bombing of the dams which destroyed thousands of acres of rice crops – as the “Asians” scurried about trying to survive.

The Minnesota attorney general's office Wednesday filed suit against two companies that required military veterans and senior citizens to sign over significant portions of their monthly pension payments in exchange for loans of relatively small sums, often to cover household emergencies and basic living expenses.

The loans often charged annual percentage rates of 200 percent and extended for as long as 10 years.

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula appeared to ease up following intense saber-rattling by the US and North Korean sides last week, but once Pyongyang’s leaders observe the US ramping up war games again, another ballistic missile test may be imminent, Seoul warns.

Ulchi Freedom Guardian drills are slated to commence on Monday, Korean media reported Wednesday. "There is a great possibility that North Korea will carry out strategic or tactical provocations to protest the latest UN sanctions and the UFG exercises," the South Korean Defense Ministry said in a statement to the nation’s lawmakers.

Military exercises in which US forces essentially rehearse and practice attacking the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) "are not funny to [North] Korea," Radio Sputnik Loud & Clear host Brian Becker said Tuesday.

Webmaster's Commentary:

OK, a logical question here: how in heaven's name can Kim Jung Un NOT see US war games, right off the cost of North Korea, practicing how to invade his country, as a "dangerously provocative act"?!?

At least three prominent Saudi dissidents living in Europe, who openly criticized Saudi Arabia’s system of government, have been illegally abducted by the country’s monarchy in the past two years, according to a report by the BBC. All three, who are members of the Saudi royal family, are missing, believed to be dead or held against their will in Saudi Arabia. But the country’s government will not comment on their fate.

Webmaster's Commentary:

I would politely like to remind both the British and American governments that this is the same Saudi government to which they feel perfectly comfortable selling weapons, with which to assassinate women, children, and the medically fragile elderly in Yemen.

An upcoming case at the US Court of Appeals could pose a major legal challenge to the ability of US presidents to unilaterally launch unprotracted ground wars , and if nothing else reasert the courts authority to tackle a war's legality

China and the United States have reached an agreement to improve their direct military communication to lower chances of “miscalculations” and accidental military confrontations amid the crisis on the Korean Peninsula.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, replaying to the latest round of US sanctions and threats, insisted his country remains committed to the P5+1 nuclear deal for the time being, despite repeated US violations. He warned this could change, however.

Iran has repeatedly sought redress for violations to mediators of the deal, but the US has continued to reimpose sanctions they removed under the deal, coming up with new pretexts, usually pretexts very light on details. Rouhani warned that if this continues, Iran might be forced to quit the nuclear deal.

Rouhani said US actions prove they can’t be trusted to deal fairly over the pact. Iran’s parliament, particularly the hardliners, are pressuring him to make some sort of reaction, and this is likely Rouhani’s attempt to warn the other five signatories that the deal could be at risk.

Webmaster's Commentary:

I kind of hate it when a guy I don't particularly care for, is absolutely correct, as Rouhani is on his assessment of the US's behaviour regarding the P5+1 Agreement.

This laying on of more sanctions against Iran, on issues which have nothing to do with the actual agreement, are simply fabricated out of thin air.

And then we have this very worrying story, out of antiwar.com from yesterday:

"Many in the Trump Administration are openly hostile toward the nuclear deal, and Haley suggested Iran was using the existence of the deal as a pretext for “support for terrorism, disregard for human rights, and violations of UN Security Council resolutions.”

These allegations are built largely not on anything Iran’s done, but on consistent US efforts to undermine the pact with new sanctions to replace those they were required by the deal to lift, with Haley suggesting Iran thinks it’s immune to getting those sanctions back so long as they comply with the nuclear deal."

It's very clear what the White House is doing here; pressuring Iran to leave the P5+1 deal through these sanctions, as a prelude to a military action against it.

And of course, Israel's Netanyahu would love to see Israel's alleged "existential threat" in the region "neutralized" (but only, mind you, at the costs of American blood and American money).

This administration has gone down a very dark path of accusing countries it doesn't like, or wants to regime change, of doing what they haven't, then punishing them for it.

I can think of no more painfully clear examples of that than of the US sanctioning Russia for allegedly "annexing" Crimea, which it did not, in 2014.

The same thing holds true here with Iran.

But I would like to very carefully caution President Trump that such a military action against Iran, may come at an horrific cost to the US military.

Russian officials and military have pledged, should Iran be attacked, to come to its defense militarily. This means that there will be a war with Russia, as well as with Iran.

And right now, the US military doesn't have the money, the manufacturing, the troop strength, or the weaponry to compete effectively against Russia in a military showdown over Iran. The Russian weaponry in Syria shows that it has had some major technological breakthroughs, and that weaponry is now in high demand around the world:

During his first stop on a tour of Latin America, Vice President Mike Pence told an audience in Colombia that Washington was “absolutely determined to bring the full measure of American economic and diplomatic power to bear until we see democracy restored in Venezuela.” Radio Sputnik’s Loud and Clear examined the ramifications of Pence’s tour.

"I'm not going to rule out a military option [to quell unrest in Venezuela]," said US President Donald Trump on Friday. "We have many options for Venezuela, this is our neighbor. We're all over the world and we have troops all over the world in places very, very far away. Venezuela is not very far away, and the people are suffering and dying. We have many options for Venezuela including a possible military option if necessary."

Webmaster's Commentary:

Mr. President and Vice President, a word here, please.

Neither Maduro's government, nor its opposition, want US troops on the ground in Venezuela.

And let's face facts here, please; neither of you are that concerned with Venezuela becoming a dictatorship. The US government has been very comfortable, supporting US-centric dictators before, like the Shah of Iran, and Pinochet in Argentina.

But what is of concern to you are those huge oil reserves in Venezuela, which you don't want either Russia or China developing, and which you only want to be sold in US dollars, by a US-centric government: that is the crux of your "concern" over recent developments here, and thinking Americans understand this.

Tarek Ahmad, a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), stated that an attempt to establish an independent Kurdish state anywhere in the Middle East will really encourage multiple wars.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The creation of an independent Kurdish state in Iraq, allegedly welcomed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, may lead to instability in the region, with Israel benefiting from the upset, Tarek Ahmad, a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), told Sputnik.

"An attempt to establish an independent Kurdish state anywhere in the Middle East will really encourage multiple wars because the question with the Kurds is how to draw the borders of the state. It is very dangerous for the region’s and the world’s stability," Ahmad said.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Ah, but that is precisely the outcome Prime Minister Netanyahu wants to see happen; more bloody wars in the middle east, coupled with destabilisation, which insures that a balkanized Iraq never, ever has the standard of living it did under Saddam Hussein.

Tehran supports the negotiations between Iraq and the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan amid the latter's plan to hold an independence referendum in September, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said Tuesday.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Qassemi said as quoted by the Fars news agency that the internal talks between Erbil and Baghdad should "resolve issues" between the parties in the run up to the referendum on independence.

The Yemeni army has used artillery to destroy an ammunition and arms depot belonging to Saudi Arabian forces in the southern Saudi province of Najran, Iranian media reported Tuesday.

The army, supported by militias, continued their operations against Saudi-led forces, shelling their positions in the province, the FARS news agency reported.

The media outlet added that the destruction of the facility in Najran's Taleh district was also confirmed by a military source close to the Yemeni army.
Yemen has been mired in a civil war since 2015. The war is waged between the internationally recognized government of President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and the Houthi movement backed by army units loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Webmaster's Commentary:

For all of the Saudi's US-militarily enabled firepower and massive military superiority; for all the assassinations of innocent non-combatants; for all the starvation of Yemenis due to the Saudi closing of ports, so no food can get in, and Yemenis are dying of malnutrition; for all the cholera, which may well have been weaponised, the Saudis do not seem to be winning this fight.
two years on.
It is high time that Prince Salmon cuts his losses, and moves on.

Indian and Chinese soldiers were involved in an altercation in the western Himalayas on Tuesday, Indian sources said, further raising tensions between the two countries which are already locked in a two-month stand-off in another part of the disputed border.

A source in New Delhi, who had been briefed on the military situation on the border, said soldiers foiled a bid by a group of Chinese troops to enter Indian territory in Ladakh, near the Pangong lake.
Some of the Chinese soldiers carried iron rods and stones, and in the melee there were minor injuries on both sides, the source said.
The two sides have frequently accused each other of intrusions into each other’s territories, but clashes are rare. The Indian military declined to comment on the incident.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Unless this situation gets mediated, and quickly, India and China could well be slouching toward a shooting war over this disputed territory.

And why should Americans care about this?!?

Because President Obama enhanced the US defence and security posture with India last year.

For those that dig into and analyze the history of humankind there has been a repeating, almost natural progression from currency wars to trade wars to shooting wars. In basic terms, the yeast that gives rise to currency wars are: too much debt and too little growth. Hence, countries steal growth from trading partners by cheapening their currencies to promote exports and create export-related jobs. Short-term relief at best as in every case eventually currency balances reassert, it is therefore a zero-sum exercise. This no-win situation eventually becomes obvious to those countries involved and they move on to trade wars or in today’s popular parlance - sanctions. This is expressed through punishing tariffs, export subsidies and nontariff impediments to free trade. The same dynamics apply as in currency wars and both sides null themselves out of play.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday announced that the number of cholera cases in Yemen had reached 500,000.

“In backing this war with billions of dollars of arms sales and military support, the U.S. and the U.K. are complicit in the suffering of millions of people in Yemen.”

—Katy Wright, OxfamThe WHO also noted that around 5,000 people are being infected with cholera daily, “and nearly 2,000 people have died since the outbreak began to spread rapidly at the end of April.”

Iranian leaders are responding to the latest round of sanctions signed by US President Donald Trump with a two-pronged approach: increased defense and intelligence spending by roughly $600-800 million and marshaling military vessels to the Atlantic Ocean.

"No military official in the world thought that we can go round Africa to the Atlantic Ocean through the Suez Canal but we did it as we had declared that we would go to the Atlantic and its western waters,” Iranian Rear Adm. Habibollah Sayyari said over the weekend, according to local media sources.

"We moved into the Atlantic and will go to its Western waters in the near future," Sayyari added. In April, Sayyari reportedly said, "redeployment in the Atlantic Ocean, intelligence superiority, development of communications, progress in the development of the Makran coast and building new vessels are among the Navy’s plans this year."

Webmaster's Commentary:

Iranian President Rouhani, a word, please: Iran's ditching the P5+1 Agreement is precisely what these sanctions are engineered to get Iran to do; please don't fall for it.

You have to know by now that the US will use such a withdrawal as the "justification" for an attack against you, and any escalation of threats to resume to your nuclear weapons program will simply accelerate US hostilities against you.

Sir, as a 68 year old thinking American, the imposition of the Shah in 53 wasn't my doing; I was all of 4 years old at the time.

So I am asking you and the Iranian Majlis not to do something rash which will cause the US government to declare war against you.

And please understand this; American citizens have absolutely no control over the actions of the American deep state, which has its own agendas, and those agendas are frequently inimical to those of the American people.

Most thinking Americans do not want to see war against Iran; unfortunately, this is what Israeli Premiere Netanyahu is constantly browbeating President Trump to do for him (but only at the costs of American blood and American money).

President Trump may well not have adequate information on Iran, because much of it is being "filtered" by advisors who are warmongers.

This is the first of a planned series of articles to be gathered under the umbrella title “War Must and Can Be Ended.” All of the pieces will be based on weekly writing assignments I completed as a participant in a spring, 2017 online study course conducted by World Beyond War, a U.S.-based global activist organization pursuing the ultimate goal of an internationally binding abolition of war.

There is something unsettling about how President Trump has surrounded himself with generals. From his defense secretary to his national security advisor to his White House chief of staff, Trump looks to senior military officers to fill key positions that have been customarily filled by civilians. He’s surrounded by generals and threatens war at the drop of a hat.

President Trump began last week by threatening “fire and fury” on North Korea. He continued through the week claiming, falsely, that Iran is violating the terms of the nuclear deal. He finally ended the week by threatening a US military attack on Venezuela.

What kind of a Cop stands by and lets people destroy public or private property because they believe these people have a constitutional right to destroy!
UTTER MADNESS!

When protesters, angry over the deadly incidents in Virginia this weekend, decided to take down a nearly century-old statue of a Confederate soldier in North Carolina on Monday, law enforcement stood back and watched.

At no time did officers with the Durham Police Department or deputies with the Durham County Sheriff’s Office intervene as activists brought a ladder up to the statue and used a rope to pull it down, according to multiple media reports.

No one was arrested Monday, however, a day later, Durham County Sheriff Mike Andrews announced investigators were working to identify the protesters and planned to bring criminal charges against them.

A delegation of Israeli defense officials will visit Washington later this week for talks with senior White House and American defense officials. Haaretz has learned that the delegation will be headed by Mossad chief Yossi Cohen, and he will be joined by the head of the Israel Defense Forces Military Intelligence, Maj. Gen. Herzl Halevi, as well as the head of the Defense Ministry's political-security department, Zohar Palti.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Mossad Chief Cohen, Maj. Gen. Herzl Halevi; and Zohar Palti, a word, please: your "defense interests" for Israel have been assured by the United States of America for generations, culminating in the defense aid package given to you by President Obama, to the tune of 38 billion dollars, over the course of a decade.

This was again topped by President Trump's aid over concerns of his Saudi weapons deal in May:

Both Presidents Obama and Trump have done this, knowing it is a violation of the Symington Amendment and the Glenn Act, which prohibits any financial aid to any country which refuses to sign the NNPT, and does not allow its nuclear weapons to be inspected: Israel fails, miserably, on both counts, but still, always gets the money it wants, while homeless American Vets sleep in our streets, and kids living in extreme poverty are horrifically food-insecure.

Israel has not been invited to the discussion between the US and Russia about the issue of peace in Syria; Russia was invited by the Syrian government to rid it of all jihadists; Israel and the United States were not.

Israel's greatest problem, is its pathological inability to get along with its regional neighbors in an intelligent, and cohesive manner; therefore, it is always demanding that "Daddy Warbucks" (read: the Unhinged, Surveilled States of America") get it out of its current self-imposed dilemma, whether it is punching up a cease fire agreement, in this case, or anything else, like "regime changing Tehran, but only with American blood and American money.

I frankly hope that the meeting goes absolutely nowhere; it may cause Israel to "play better with others" in the region. And please note: this delegation is not going to Moscow to attempt to get what it wants, from the Syrian cease fire.

THE KEY SAUDI official in charge of the catastrophic ongoing war in Yemen wants it to stop, he told two influential foreign policy figures in Washington this spring.

Mohammed bin Salman, a member of the Saudi royal family who effectively rules the country, made the comments to Martin Indyk and Stephen Hadley. Indyk was a high-level diplomat during both the Clinton and Obama administrations and Hadley a top adviser to former President George W. Bush.

Indyk relayed the conversation to Yousef Al Otaiba, the United Arab Emirates ambassador to the United States, and the man most responsible for aiding bin Salman’s rise in Washington.

“I think MBS is far more pragmatic than what we hear in saudi public positions,” Otaiba wrote to Indyk on the morning of April 20.

Webmaster's Commentary:

This was in April; if Prince Salman wants Saudi troops out of Yemen, why has he not given the order to draw down?!?

A flurry of threats last week had the whole region fearing a new Korean War was about to break out, but Monday gave way to at least a bit of an attempt by everyone involved to revisit the possibility of diplomacy.

That’s not to say that diplomacy is any more imminent this week than war was last week, but as North Korea put its Guam missile launches on hold, US officials against made it very clear they were at least open o a resolution that didn’t involve nuclear war.

North Korea’s Kim Jong-un said that US should show itself to be committed to an alternative to the conflict, while US officials continued to reiterate how ready they were for war. Either way, both sides agree it was entirely the other side’s fault, and that it’s entirely up to the other side to stop the provocations.

Webmaster's Commentary:

However this decision came down from Kim Jung Un to not send his missiles flying in a Guam-centric direction, the world is, collectively, breathing a sign of relief this morning.

The question is, what will the US, China, North and South Korea do now?!?

Will they take advantage of the slight ratcheting down of tensions in order to get to the conference table, and hammer out a true peace deal with which to replace the Armistice, in return for Kim Jung Un abandoning his nuclear program, and let North Korea trade, unimpeded by sanctions?!?

In the Chinese language, the ideogram for "Crisis" and "Opportunity" are one in the same; let us hope the US government takes great advantage of this slight lessening of tensions here.

Speaking to reporters during a visit to Colombia, Vice President Mike Pence warned that Venezuela is “collapsing into dictatorship,” and that the country becoming a “failed state” would make it a threat to the security and prosperity of the United States.

United States Naval Construction Battalions, better known as the Seabees (C.B. – construction battalion), of the Naval Construction Force held a groundbreaking ceremony for a maritime operations center on Ochakov Naval Base, Ukraine, July 25. According to the Navy.mil, the official website of the US Navy, the maritime operations center is one of three projects that are currently planned to be executed by the Seabees in Ochakov and will serve as a major planning and operational hub during future military exercises hosted by Ukraine. The Seabees arrived in Ochakov in April to establish contracts, obtain construction permits and perform other logistical tasks for the maritime operations center project.

Webmaster's Commentary:

So now, the US military has boots on the ground, permanently, in Ukraine.

IF those in the bowels of power in DC actually wanted better relations with Russia, they would not be permanently installing a naval base at Ochakov.

President Trump’s recent threats of military action against Venezuela were amplified by his CIA director, Mike Pompeo, over the weekend. Pompeo would have us believe Venezuela is a serious threat to the United States because of his claim that the Russians, Iranians, Cubans, and Hezbollah are all in Venezuela.

As the drumbeat intensifies for what might turn out to be anything but a «splendid little war» against North Korea, it is appropriate to take stock of the ongoing, seemingly successful effort to strip President Donald Trump of his authority to make any foreign and national security policies that fly against the wishes of the so-called Military-Industrial Complex, or MIC. A Google search for «Military-Industrial Complex» (in quotation marks) with «Trump» yields almost 450,000 hits from all sources and almost 26,000 from just news sources.

The Pentagon is being sued by a veterans group after the agency exposed private information of soldiers’ military records on “a truly massive scale.” The information is being exposed due to lax security on a Defense Department website.

US President Donald Trump’s military threat against Venezuela showed his “resolve” to help the neighboring country amid a political crisis, Vice President Mike Pence says, adding that Washington was looking for a “peaceable” solution.

It’s like the 1980s all over again. Men are dressing like women, there’s an entertainer in the White House, and we’re on the brink of a nuclear standoff. Tensions with Koreans of the North and their tub-of-lard dictating leader are at an all time high.

In the last four weeks, North Korea seems to have implemented the second phase of its strategy against South Korea, China and the United States. The North Korean nuclear program seems to have reached an important juncture, with two tests carried out at the beginning and end of July.

The former Soviet republic of Moldova may actually become yet another foothold for the US military in Europe. The US Naval Facilities Engineering Command Europe Africa Southwest Asia (NAVFAC EURAFSWA) plans to construct eight training facilities for military operations in urban terrain at the Bulboaca training base in Moldova. The fact that the US Navy Department is involved makes believe the facility will host American Marines.

A total of $1.6 million has already been invested in the renovation of the Bulboaca base located near Tiraspol, the capital of Transnistria or the Transnistrian Moldovan Republic. The largely Russian-speaking region broke away from Moldova following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Webmaster's Commentary:

It is no wonder that Russia sees US troops on its borders as a clear and present danger!

After President Donald Trump warned on Friday that the US military is “locked and loaded” and presumably prepared for an all-out nuclear showdown with North Korea, administration officials engaged in that most artful of Trump-era maneuvers: softening the president’s rhetoric without appearing to undercut him.

Now that financial markets are taking the threat of nuclear war between the US and North Korea seriously - or were until this morning - the administration is trying to walk a fine line between reassuring investors that nuclear war isn’t imminent, while stressing that all military options remain on the table.

Echoing comments made by CIA Director Mike Pompeo on the Sunday talk shows, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Joseph Dunford emphasized during a meeting with South Korea's president that the US will only resort to military options once all "diplomatic and economic sanctions" have been exhausted, according to Reuters.

Webmaster's Commentary:

In looking at these very mixed messages, I'm coming down with intellectual whiplash!

As the world focuses on the escalating rhetoric between President Trump and Kim Jong-Un of North Korea, Iranian forces seem to also be growing increasingly hostile toward American Navy operations in the Persian Gulf with the AP reporting a second "dangerous" encounter with an Iranian drone in the span of less than a week. Just last week we noted that an Iranian drone came within 100 feet of an F/A-18 operating from the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier forcing pilots to take evasive measures to avoid a collision.

Now the Associated Press is reporting that another Iranian drone shadowed the USS Nimitz overnight creating a dangerous operating environment for U.S. pilots.

An unarmed Iranian drone shadowed a U.S. aircraft carrier at night and came close enough to F-18 fighter jets to put the lives of American pilots at risk, the Navy said Tuesday, reporting the second such tense encounter within a week.

Webmaster's Commentary:

To the Iranian Military, a word, please; at the moment when Nikki Haley, the US Ambassador to the UN is in Vienna, attempting to find one bit of info (accurate or not) that Iran is not in compliance with the P5+1 Accord, as the justification for going to war against your country, sending out a drone to shadow the USS Nimitz may not have been a particularly swell idea right now.

If you want to radically change the dynamic then you have to apply extreme pressure. I feel this is what Trump and his advisors are doing. They are appearing to “have the strength to force the moment to its crisis” to quote T.S. Eliot.

And that strength or purpose is creating large movements. Trump is a bully. It’s what he does, at least publicly. The response so far from China has been to denounce the idea of regime change in Pyongyang.

The response from Russia, through Foreign Minister (and top diplomat in the world right now), Sergei Lavrov was to announce a deal brokered between it, North Korea and China to get what Trump wants; no potential for nukes in North Korea.

"Russia together with China developed a plan which proposes 'double freezing': Kim Jong-un should freeze nuclear tests and stop launching any types of ballistic missiles, while US and South Korea should freeze large-scale drills which are used as a pretext for the North’s tests."

Less than half of the bombers President Donald Trump would rely upon to be “locked and loaded” against North Korea could launch today if needed, according to the latest Air Force figures available.

That’s not a surprise to the bomb squadrons who have seen firsthand the combined effects of aircraft age, the demand of 15 years of air war operations and reduced budgets. But the numbers can be stark. Of the nation’s 75 conventional and nuclear B-52s, only about 33 are ready to fly at any given time, according to Air Force statistics. Of the 62 conventional B-1s, only about 25 are ready. With the 20 nuclear B-2 stealth bombers, the number drops further. Seven or eight bombers are available, according to the Air Force.

“On a nominal basis you don’t have more than single digits of B-2s available to do anything,” said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dave Deptula, currently the dean of the Mitchell Institute of Aerospace.

In March, at around the time of the biggest annual maneuvers between the U.S. and South Korea, the North fired four extended-range Scud missiles into waters off the Japanese coast in what was intended to be a mock attack on Marine Corps Air Station, Iwakuni.

Iwakuni is one of the main U.S. bases in Japan and was the staging point for F-35 stealth fighters believed to be training for precision strikes on North Korea against Kim Jong Un and his top lieutenants.

The March missile launch was not as bold as the plan for Guam — the North didn’t tell the world beforehand and deliberately sent the missiles much farther north than the base itself, an easy tweak. But the move sent a strong message that such an attack would be possible.

Webmaster's Commentary:

I think that North Korea will go ahead with its plans, to test launch missiles around Guam; what is very important, should they do it, is how the US and China respond to such an act.

I think Chinese President Xi Jinping should be working very closely with President Trump on presenting a united US/Chinese response if this happens; Kim Jung Un needs to realise that both countries are working in concert on this issue, and he cannot separate the US from China here.

War with China, over North Korea, would be the worst possible scenario imaginable here, and would create a genocide of the South and North Korean people.

“THIS WAS NEVER about enrichment.” The academics and officials in the room were taken aback. For a former senior Israeli official to deny the importance of the nuclear issue was unusual, to say the least. The conversations, attended by American civilian and military officials and other Western representatives, as well as Iranian diplomats and Tehran’s then-nuclear negotiators, were shockingly honest.

It was April 2012. Tensions between Israel and the Obama administration were rising.

The closed meeting, organized by a prominent U.S. university and held in a small Western European country, revealed dynamics driving the conflict that are rarely discussed in public: The Israeli fear that Iran’s rise in the region would be accepted by the U.S., and that it would regard Tehran as a legitimate player in the new regional order without Tehran accepting Israel’s existence.

Webmaster's Commentary:

As those who read this blog regularly appreciate, I have been a very vocal critic of many of President Obama's policies; the P5+1, regarding Iran, was not one of them, and I consider it one of the prudent, and effective, international deals of his entire presidency.

Unfortunately, President Trump wants to tear up the agreement, and right now, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, is in Vienna, attempting to find a way to claim that Iran is not complying with the agreement, even as the IAEA states, emphatically, that they are.

As Israeli Prime Minister goes down to abject defeat in his coming trial for corruption, it will be interesting to see if Israel's next Prime Minister will still call for "regime change" in Iran, (only at the costs of American blood and American money), or find some other way to recharacterize Iran as essentially non-threatening, and find ways to engage, both economically and politically.

During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump was adamantly opposed to the idea of arming Ukraine, seeing it as contrary to a potential diplomatic rapprochement with Russia. As with a lot of candidate Trump’s positions, President Trump’s position seems to be shifting.

The possibility of arming Ukraine is now the topic of intense debate within the cabinet, with proponents arguing that such arms would be a great way to increasing the pressure on Russia after a flurry of anti-Russia sanctions.

Such a move is potentially risky, because Ukraine is in the midst of a shaky ceasefire with eastern rebels, a ceasefire the US hasn’t publicly endorsed. The armament of one side could be seen as overtly trying to undermine the ceasefire, and encouraging Ukraine to attack the rebels.

Webmaster's Commentary:

To those in the Bowels of Power in DC, I am politely informing you that doing this would be a very bad idea for the Ukrainian people.

The corruption seen in the "appointment" of Poroshenko by the West in 2014, has not abated, but become far worse, in the three years since it happened.

Also, what kinds of weapons is DC thinking about sending/selling to Ukraine?!?

As reported at defensenews.com:

" The last time the United States considered arming Ukraine with lethal defensive weapons — about three years ago — the proposal was ultimately dropped over concern for Russia’s reaction. But amid a flash in tension between Moscow and Washington, the U.S. Defense Department is back at it.

According to a Monday report in The Wall Street Journal, the Joint Chiefs of Staff — with the support of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker — has drawn up a proposal to deliver anti-tank weapons (some have speculated this includes advanced Javelin missile systems) and anti-aircraft missiles to Kiev’s military."

And how can the US government be assured that these weapons actually go into the hands of the Ukrainian military, rather than be sold off on the black market, to various factions, as happened with Ukrainian black market rocket engines winding up on North Korean missiles?!?

US special forces are in 70% of the world's countries, including Ukraine.

At this moment in time, arming the Ukrainian military will send the absolutely wrong signal to Moscow, that the US is itching for a fight against it, and Ukraine seems to be a reasonable place from which to start that war; unless that is the real calculus driving the decision to arm Ukraine.

In an unprecedented move against North Korea, China on Monday issued an order to carry out the United Nations sanctions imposed on the rogue regime earlier this month.

China made the announcement amid not only Pyongyang's escalating war of words with the United States regarding the North Korea nuclear missile program, but also as President Trump was reportedly set to order an investigation into China's trade practice -- a probe which could lead the U.S. to levy its own sanctions on Beijing.

Trump has sought China's help in dealing with North Korea, as China has remained one of the last defenders of dictator Kim Jong Un and could apply enormous financial pressure should it turn on the North Korean leader.

Webmaster's Commentary:

What concerns me here, is the way in which trade wars can morph into shooting wars, and that would be the worst of all possible options with China.

Iran’s parliament chanted ‘death to America’ on Sunday following a vote to increase ballistic missile production and boost the number of Revolutionary Guards in response to U.S. sanctions, less than a year after president Obama sent $1.7 billion in Euros, Swiss francs, and other foreign currencies strapped to pallets in exchange for U.S. hostages.

The vote to boost defense spending by US $520 million – less than one 10th of 1 percent of the $600 billion U.S. defense budget, was cast to counter “terrorist and adventurous actions” by the United States in the region, and will also be used to boost the ranks of Revolutionary Guards.

Per Iran’s state-run news agency PressTV:

The measure came after President Donald Trump signed into law a bill passed by US Congress to impose new sanctions on Iran over its missile program in early August.

Webmaster's Commentary:

An open letter to the Iranian Majlis: yes, I know that you are in both Israel's and the Unhinged, Surveilled States of America's crosshairs.

Yes, I understand that Israel wants to create regime change in Iran, but only wants the costs of such an action to be solely in American blood and American money.

But please, you need to understand that most thinking Americans do not want war at all against Iran, but are utterly powerless when it comes to actually being in any kind of control of the American deep state, which has its own agendas, and those agendas have utterly nothing to do with the real needs and concerns of American citizens.

Since the 1979 Revolution, Iran has been on an incredible journey, and has garnered a great deal of respect for that journey from all around the world. You have developed a Constitution (something that Israel does not have); minority religions, like Christianity, Baha'i, and Judaism, are protected; you have developed incredible schools of learning for your kids and young adults; and the growth of your scientific research in many areas has been formidable.

So the bottom line here, is that, understanding all of this, as a thinking, rational human being, I could never say, "Death to Iran", and neither could a lot of my friends and colleagues.

The American Deep State's "war" against you, is all about controlling your oil, and insuring that your oil is sold only in US dollars.

ears before the U.S. illegally invaded and then occupied Iraq, plans were circulating within the Pentagon to partition the country along “sectarian” lines, with the express purpose of allowing the U.S. and its regional allies to better control oil resource production and movement within the Middle East. In Syria, the same narrative of partition has more recently been circulated as the “only” solution to the nation’s sectarian divisions, divisions which did not emerge until they were artificially created in 2011 when the current conflict began and later fomented by hostile foreign actors.

According to state run propaganda media, North Korea is on standby to launch a missile at the mainland United States. Responding to President Donald Trump’s recent warnings to the rogue regime in this manner has just flung tensions to heights never seen – not even during the Cold War.

North Korea took its turn Saturday to raise tensions in the back-and-forth escalation toward war with President Trump and the United States. The state-run newspaper said that North Korean dictator Kim Jung Un’s revolutionary army is “capable of fighting any war the U.S. wants.” The same newspaper also noted that the Paektusan army is now “on the standby to launch fire into its mainland, waiting for an order of final attack.” Unfortunately, it is possible that we will witness World War 3 and these heightened tensions between the U.S. and North Korea could be the catalyst.

Webmaster's Commentary:

This has been confirmed by other media, including zerohedge.com; express.co.uk; and the nypost.com.

With General Dunford making the "grand tour" of South Korea, Japan, and China, I am hoping and praying that a peaceful solution can ultimately be found.

But if Kim Jung-Un actually goes ahead, and follows through on his threats, all bets are off for a peaceful resolution of this issue.

Authored by Jeremiah Johnson (nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces) via ReadyNutrition.com,

Let’s just say that the unthinkable becomes the real and happening. Let’s take this article and go over it. This will be a segment in three parts, the next ones being immediate actions taken at work and at home. I’m hitting on traveling first, as there are so many vacationers jaunting around happily over the landscape. All kidding aside, traffic is congested during the summer, extending traveling time on the commutes. Let’s game the scenario, and here it is.

Here’s the scenario:

Webmaster's Commentary:

IF in fact this information is correct, in terms of North Korea's capabilities, do not think, for a moment, that the US Deep State is not capable of pulling off a false flag of this nature domestically, do be blamed on North Korea as the justification for war against it.

That being said, the logical, level-headed prepping concepts presented here are very sound, and should be followed through upon, if you want to survive any kind of catastrophe, and are on the road, helpless to move.

Just as a reminder, the most powerful weapon tested by North Korea to date, is too weak to create a destructive EMP.

As if there weren't enough geopolitical and social stress points in the world to fill a lifetime of "sleepy, vacationy" Augusts, late on Friday night President Trump spoke to Chinese President Xi Jinping and told him that he's preparing to order an investigation into Chinese trade practices next week, according to NBC. Politico confirms that Trump is ready to launch a new trade crackdown on China next week, citing an administration official, a step that Trump delayed two weeks ago under the guidance of his new Chief of Staff Gen. Kelly, but now appears imminent. It is also an escalation which most analysts agree will launch a trade war between Washington and Beijing.

Webmaster's Commentary:

The thing I hate most about trade wars, is their capabilities of morphing into shooting wars.

I would like to hope President Trump has the presence of mind to understand that this is precisely where we should not be going with China right now, particularly with the simmering, quasi-war state of hostilities over North Korea.

The Pentagon’s top military officer said here Sunday the focus remains on finding a diplomatic solution to the North Korea missile crisis, even as the military works up viable options in case they become necessary.

Amid heated rhetoric between President Donald Trump and North Korea’s rogue leader, Kim Jong Un, the military is quietly supporting Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s effort to use diplomatic and economic pressure to avert war.

“As a military leader, I have to make sure that the president does have viable military options in the event that the diplomatic and economic pressurization campaign fails,” said Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joe Dunford in his first public remarks since the crisis escalated with North Korea’s launch of a second intercontinental ballistic missile late last month.

Webmaster's Commentary:

I have to wonder just how real is that part of this headline which states that the General"... Pushes for Diplomacy" and how much of that is simply for domestic Unhinged, Surveilled States of America consumption.

The error, according to 38 North, lies in an inept English translation of a statement made by North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho at the ASEAN Regional Forum meeting on July 26.

The English translation was: “We will, under no circumstances, put the nukes and ballistic rockets on the negotiating table. Neither shall we flinch even an inch from the road to bolstering up the nuclear forces chosen by ourselves, unless the hostile policy and nuclear threat of the US against the DPRK are fundamentally eliminated.”

38 North says the splitting of the sentences raises several questions as to what was covered under the qualifier of “unless” the hostile policy is removed. But 38 North says the answer can be found in the Korean-language version in which the formula was presented as one sentence, not two.

Webmaster's Commentary:

It's amazing what one mistranslation from a foreign language, into English, can do to people's interpretation of what actually was said.

Right now, that mistranslation could well translate into a shooting war between the US, China, and North Korea.

On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Mattis issued an ultimatum to North Korea, saying “cease any consideration of actions that would lead to the end of its regime and destruction of its people.”

His warning came in response to Pyongyang suggesting plans to fire ballistic missiles to within 30 – 40 km from Guam by mid-August.

On Thursday, Trump said his “fire and fury” warning perhaps wasn’t “tough enough.” The DPRK should “get (its) act together (or it’ll) be in trouble like few nations have ever been.” Its leadership should be “very, very nervous” if it does anything harmful to America or its allies.

WASHINGTON – Less than half of the bombers President Donald Trump would rely upon to be “locked and loaded” against North Korea could launch today if needed, according to the latest Air Force figures available.

Defying widespread anti-war sentiment, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull yesterday gave an unprecedented pledge to join what would be a catastrophic war by the United States against North Korea.

Usually foreign analysts of the American political scene are either sycophantic or just annoying, but no one would dare say that about Aussie observer Caitlin Johnstone, whose punk rock style of cutting to the chase is as refreshing as it can be shocking (I am not a fan of the strong language, but I get it). Since President Trump’s “fire and fury” explosion yesterday Americans have to an unsettling degree once again rallied ’round the (false) flag of war propaganda. Today Ms. Johnstone provided a much-needed slap in the face to the mind-numbed masses once again clamoring for US bombs on a country they could not find on a map if their lives depended on it.

A bulk of the troops of the Sukna-based 33 Corps have been or are in the process of being moved to the Indo-China frontier in Sikkim even as the controversy over the Doklam plateau at the India-Bhutan-China tri-junction continues to surface from time to time.

Eastern Command army sources revealed that all three divisions under the 33 Corps, which is stationed in Sukna, near Siliguri in West Bengal, have been deployed on the Sino-Indian border.

The troop movement from Sukna began about 20-25 days ago. The most important and vital elements of the corps have moved up and taken position in designated "Op Areas".

The Movement “Has More to Do With Posturing”

The troops are at varying depths of 20 kms to 500 metres from the India-China border in north and east Sikkim. Some units were given four days' written notice to move to the upper reaches while others have been handed out as little as six hours' notice to move up.

Webmaster's Commentary:

This may be attributed to "posturing", on India's side, but such a move looks about as serious as a heart attack to me, understanding that the Chinese have threatened India with a military operation, if they don't yield the land China claims is actually theirs.

North Korea displayed its submarine-launched ballistic missiles for the first time on Saturday ahead of a massive military parade in the capital, Pyongyang.

Weapons analysts said they believed some of the other missiles on display were new types of intercontinental ballistic missiles.

North Korea warned the United States on Saturday to end its "military hysteria" or face retaliation as a US aircraft carrier group steamed towards the region and the reclusive state marked the 105th anniversary of the birth of its founding father.

The North Korean ceremony began with a massive parade of military personnel and hardware through Pyongyang on Saturday morning to mark the birthday of Kim Il-sung, the revered founder of the nation.

Webmaster's Commentary:

The question is not Kim Jung Un's military parades, and both his and President Trump's bombast which concerns me here; it is what each leader is actually prepared to do, in this latest war of words which may well escalate to a shooting war which concerns me, particularly in light of the fact that Mike and I live very close to a first strike target, which China can actually hit!

For the second time in just over a year, the Marine Corps ordered all of the branch’s aircraft to suspend flight operations for a 24-hour “operational reset” following two deadly aviation accidents in recent weeks.

Defense expert have warned that the multi-billion-dollar US missile systems may not be capable of defending the country against possible missile attacks, as the war of words is escalating between Washington and Pyongyang.

As the rhetoric continues to pick up around North Korea, the talk of military options, or worse the “military solution” increasingly appears to center around the conceit that there is some possibility for a limited war, or some other way that the US could make a quick attack on North Korea and fix everything militarily.

Experts, however, broadly agree that’s simply not the case. North Korea has spent the last 60+ years worrying about a US attack, and preparing to retaliate with everything that they have. This retaliation, even before factoring in North Korea’s nuclear program would destroy much of South Korea, and likely kill upwards of a million people.

That threat of massively destructive retaliation was always the ace up North Korea’s sleeve that kept them from getting attacked in the first place, sort of a mutually-assured destruction build around conventional arms and the fact that the huge, and economically important, city of Seoul is so close by.

Webmaster's Commentary:

There are no good military options here; the only option which makes sense is to get North Korea, China, Japan, South Korea, and the US back to a negotiating table where the existing armistice would be replaced by a true peace treaty, guaranteeing freedom of unsanctioned trade, in exchange for Kim Jung Un letting go of his nuclear weapons program.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday accused neighboring Laos of sending troops into Cambodian territory in April and set an August 17 deadline for their departure, warning that he was mobilizing soldiers to the border area.

Cambodia and Communist Laos are key allies of giant northern neighbor China, backing its "One Belt, One Road" drive to build regional infrastructure, but it was not immediately clear how their dispute would affect the plans.

In late July, the construction of the Operations Center for a US military base on the Ukrainian coast. The base will be located in Ochakov in the Mykolayiv region. This is one of three construction projects carried out by the 1st mobile construction battalion of the US Navy in the Ukrainian Navy Ochakovo Base, where the 5th surface ship brigade of the Ukrainian Navy now officially is based. Earlier it was reported that the US is also going to supply Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine for about $ 50 million.

Pravda asked Victor Murakhovsky to comment on the situation. He is editor-in-chief of the journal Arsenal of the Fatherland, a member of the expert council of the board of the Military-Industrial Commission of the Russian Federation, and a reserve colonel.

As is often the case, most people wait until the last minute to prepare for the worst.

As reported by CBS Detroit, one Army Surplus store owner reports that preparedness equipment is flying off the shelves:

“We’ve been very busy. Unusually busy, I’d say,” Orr told WWJ’s Sandra McNeill. “It’s definitely an increase, just in selling all the normal prepper stuff, end of the world stuff. A lot of water prep stuff, food, MREs — the military meals.”

And there’s been a substantial increase in the sale of a particular item they don’t sell much of — a so-called radiation antidote called potassium iodide.

While there is a debate in many circles about whether there is actually a threat, it’s important to keep abreast of what’s going on. The following headlines will give you a variety of resources to consider.

Amid the thick fog of (rhetorical) war between Washington and Pyongyang, it’s still possible to detect some fascinating writing on the (unbuilt) wall.

A case can be made that President Trump is using North Korea to kick the 24/7 Russia-gate narrative out of the US news cycle. It's certainly working. After all, in Exceptionalistan weltanschauung, the prospect of war and its possible rewards certainly trumps hazy accusations of Russian hacking and election interference.

Webmaster's Commentary:

IF, in fact, what Escobar is saying is true, this could potentially destroy the entire structure of the US international security relations horrifically quickly.

The standoff between China and India along the Doklam Plateau has shown no signs of de-escalating, as India continues to bolster its strength and increase operational readiness along the border.
New Delhi raised the military alertness level as a "matter of caution," according to anonymous sources speaking to Reuters. The level in question is known as "no war, no peace," and instructs the soldiers to take defensive positions.

India sends its troops onto "operational alert" every year in the fall — but this year the state has been activated early. "It's out of caution. It has been done because of the situation," the anonymous source told Reuters. "The troop level along the border with China in the Sikkim and Arunachal sectors [next to Doklam] has been increased," another anonymous official told the India Times.

Webmaster's Commentary:

This border dispute between India and China looks as though it is about to slouch toward a shooting war, and that could be absolutely disastrous.

Recently declassified documents from the archive of the Central Intelligence Agency detail financial and material support given by the United States to groups of armed guerrillas in Soviet Latvia in the 1950s. The documents, initially marked ‘Top Secret’ but now declassified, show that the CIA was aware and supported the activities of an anti-Soviet guerrilla army known as ‘the Forest Brothers’.

The White House is considering an unprecedented plan to privatize the war in Afghanistan at the urging of Erik Prince, founder of the now-defunct private mercenary firm Blackwater. Prince told USA Today the plan would include sending 5,500 private mercenaries to Afghanistan to advise the Afghan army. It would also include deploying a private air force — with at least 90 aircraft — to carry out the bombing campaign against Taliban insurgents.

Joint US and South Korean military drills will go ahead as planned later in August despite a spike in tensions in the region, officials in Seoul said, as Donald Trump continues to threaten the use of force to make North Korea curb its missile program.

The ‘Ulchi-Freedom Guardian’ exercises are held annually and cause outrage from North Korea, with Pyongyang calling them preparation for war.

The 2017 wargames were planned before the outbreak of the current crisis and won’t be rescheduled, military officials in the South Korean capital, Seoul, told AP.

The drills, which are to take place between August 21 and 31, will begin without delay, the unnamed officials said on Friday, without elaborating.

On Thursday, the US military launched another exercise in the region, teaming up with its Japanese counterparts.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Timing of multinational military drills is never accidental.

You've got the US/South Korean drills running from between August 21 and 31.

You've got the ongoing drills with Japan ending on 28 August.

Were the US government to create a false flag, I would suspect that the most likely time would be from 21 August through 28 August, when you have the maximum US/South Korean/Japanese military participation in these drills, presenting, potentially, a target-rich environment with which to create that false flag, to be blamed on North Korea as the justification for war against it.

I remember things happening fast during that long-ago August. An Army recruiter visited my house just before I left for school. He sat in my living room and told me Iraq's military was massive, that Saddam Hussein was more dangerous than Adolf Hitler, but if I joined up now and entered the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, I wouldn't be near combat for at least four years. Besides, he said, this war will be over by then. I remembered my father, what volunteering for Vietnam did to him, and politely declined the proffered papers.

Around 200,000 US troops are stationed in 177 countries throughout the world. The forces use several hundred bases, more than 1,000 if the figure includes overseas warehouse and installations. The US may need more soon, with its presence and involvement in armed conflicts on the rise.

Under President Trump, drone strikes worldwide grew 432 percent as of mid-March. Civilian death toll is significant in Iraq and Syria as a result of US bombardment.

A war with Iran appears to be imminent. An attack against North Korea is on the cards. There is a plan to spend $8 billion on bulking up the US presence in the Asia-Pacific region over the next five years by upgrading military infrastructure, conducting additional exercises and deploying more forces and ships.

In a glimmer of hope that a military conclusion to the North Korean crisis may yet be averted, Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said that "Russia does not accept a North Korea that possesses nuclear weapons", cautioned that there is an "overwhelming amount of over-the-top belligerent rhetoric on North Korea’s nuclear and rocket programs from Washington and Pyongyang", but most importantly said that there is a joint Russian-Chinese plan to defuse the North Korean crisis, according to which North Korea would freeze its missile tests, while the US and South Korea would stop large scale exercises.

"Russia together with China developed a plan which proposes 'double freezing': Kim Jong-un should freeze nuclear tests and stop launching any types of ballistic missiles, while US and South Korea should freeze large-scale drills which are used as a pretext for the North’s tests."

Webmaster's Commentary:

This is completely logical; which is why the US government will most likely reject it out of hand.

Guam Homeland Security issued a new fact sheet Friday, which the agency says will help residents prepare for an imminent missile threat.

The information was released following this week's threat by North Korea to launch a missile attack against Guam. The advice includes tips such as:

"Do not look at the flash or fireball – It can blind you" and

"Take cover behind anything that might offer protection."

“Lie flat on the ground and cover your head. If the explosion is some distance away, it could take 30 seconds or more for the blast wave to hit,” the sheet states.
During a press conference at Adelup late Friday afternoon, USA Today reports that Gov. Eddie Calvo told reporters that the threat level remains the same and that the island is "safe and sound."

"There are no changes," Calvo said.

"Everyone should continue to live their lives."

Webmaster's Commentary:

No, what North Korea said was that it would be missile testing around the vicinity of Guam, and wanted to make sure that aircraft stayed out of the way when that happened.

But in light of the reality that the North Koreans don't really have a working guidance system yet, were I a resident of Guam or Japan, I would be more than a little nervous right now.

George W, Bush was known for his total ignorance of geography. “Dubya the Geographer: Someone Buy This Man an Atlas” appears in dubyaspeak.com, Dubya Speaks, We Record the Damage.

Fast forward to 2017: What about Donald Trump who has his thumb on the nuclear button. What is his knowledge of geography.

“If you’re sweating the possibility of a Donald Trump presidency, take this to heart — at least he’s not running to be anyone’s eighth grade geography teacher.” Jeva Lange quoted in This Week, June 15, 2016)

“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity”. Martin Luther King Jr.

The relationship between India and China seemed to worsen Wednesday when the Chinese Foreign Ministry said that 53 people and an Indian bulldozer was in China's territory and advised India to pull them back. This followed a warning Tuesday when an editorial in the state-run China Daily said that the "countdown to a clash between the two forces has begun."

"India should withdraw its troops and equipment. Regardless of how many Indian troops have trespassed into and stayed in Chinese territory, they have gravely infringed on China's sovereignty," the ministry said, the Global Times reported.

The China Daily editorial said the clock was ticking and that it seemed like a clash would be “an inevitable conclusion” between the two prominent Asian countries if India did pull back its troops from the disputed Doklam region.

Webmaster's Commentary:

China has set the war wagon in motion against India, and it cannot back down from this statement; it now appears that this conflict is a question of "when" rather than "if", at this point.

The US/Saudi war on Yemen is now in its third year, and the indiscriminate Saudi bombing campaign has destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure, left thousands dead and millions starving in a man-made famine, and triggered a cholera epidemic that has infected almost half a million people.

On July 23, the International Committee of the Red Cross warned that more than 600,000 people were expected to contract cholera in Yemen this year.

Most Americans are not aware of their country’s role in this war on the Middle East’s poorest country, but the Yemenis know very well that Washington supplies the weapons and sponsors the Saudi bombing campaign responsible for their suffering. In the capital Sanaa, anti-American graffiti are plastered on walls throughout the city screaming “USA kills Yemeni people,” and they see the war as not just as a Saudi war, but as a US war on their country.

Webmaster's Commentary:

In Yemen, in its enabling the Saudis, the Unhinged, Surveilled States of America is colluding in Saudi war crimes, and state-sponsored terrorism against the Yemeni people. The following images are very graphic, but I believe, critically in need of being seen, in order to start some level of dialogue with the American people, as to whether these actions should be funded with their tax dollars, and performed in their names.

I am morally ashamed of my country's war crimes in Yemen; I wish Mike and I could emigrate to a country which doesn't indulge in this kind of behaviour, but we are far too old - and too broke - to do so.

Worried by the Trump administration’s delay in announcing a military strategy for the war in Afghanistan, Sen. John McCain said Thursday he’ll try to force the debate on Capitol Hill, offering his own plan that would force a troop increase.

The Arizona Republican, who is also chairman of the Armed Services Committee, didn’t lay out a number in the legislation but said more American counterterrorism forces should be deployed, and given independent authority to strike targets of the Taliban, al Qaeda or other terrorist groups.

Mr. McCain also said the U.S should secure a long-term agreement with Afghanistan for an “enduring” military presence there, and should begin to impose penalties on neighboring Pakistan as punishment for that country’s harboring of insurgents and terrorists.

His plan comes at a time when the Trump White House is divided by debate over what to do in the war-torn nation, which continues to backslide on a host of security yardsticks.

Webmaster's Commentary:

I would like to politely suggest to Senator Mc Cain, that to do the same thing, over and over, in precisely the same way, yet expecting a different outcome...is a classic definition of insanity.

For the last bloody 16 years, we have seen surges, followed by drawdowns,to absolutely no avail, in terms of getting less territory held by the Taliban. There is utterly no military metric by which you can characterise this war as having a "successful outcome".

So Senator Mc Cain, who never saw a US-instigated war he didn't like, there are some questions that come to mind, in terms of your great enthusiasm for pursuing countless wars, many times at an horrendous costs in blood and money, with lousy outcomes.

I have to wonder from what industries the extreme gap was filled between your annual salary and your net worth; would I be too far off the mark to say that the difference is made up either by personal investments in America's military/Industrial complex, or overt/covert contributions from these industries?!?

Those could, certainly, be your motivation for keeping a failed war in Afghanistan continuing.

To characterize congressional conduct regarding the Vietnam War as timorous and irresponsible is to be kind. There were individual exceptions, of course, among them Senator Morse who had opposed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution and Senator Fulbright who by 1967 openly regretted his vote in favor and recognized Vietnam for the disaster it had become. Collectively, however, legislators failed abjectly.

Well, with the passage of a half century, here we are again, back in the soup (or perhaps more accurately, the sand). With the United States currently mired in the longest armed conflict in the nation’s history—considerably longer than Vietnam—Senator Lausche’s proposal of 1967 just might merit a fresh look.

Webmaster's Commentary:

What President Trump and NATO should do, is remove their troops as quickly as it is safely possible from Afghanistan, then negotiate with whatever government is left standing in Kabul for the oil pipeline and mineral rights; of course, that...would be logical.

President Trump inherited this excrement sandwich; Afghanistan is not his fault.

But he should end this horrific war, which has cost the US and NATO dearly in blood and money.

A new round of fighting has erupted around the southern Philippines city of Marawi, as ongoing attempts to recapture the city from the ISIS rebels had led to what is basically an open-ended siege.

Fighting over Marawi began back in May, and has been ongoing since then, though not as heavily as it was early on. This latest fighting, according to officials, left at least nine Islamists killed, including one identified as Isnilon Hapilon, wanted by the FBI.

The Philippine military is claiming that the Islamists inside the city have been trying to dig a tunnel out under a major mosque as a way to get out of the battle zone. The military is acting in a fairly broad region around the city,so tunneling that far would be a real trick.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Timing, when it comes to geopolitical issues, and wars (including alleged "drug wars" are never accidental.

Did you note that ISIS didn't rear its ugly head in the Philippines until Duterte vowed to execute them all?!?

Less than a month ago, President Trump admitted that Iran was in compliance with the P5+1 nuclear deal. It was clear he wasn’t happy with it, and reports were that the admission came after a bitter fight with his cabinet, who warned him against falsely claiming Iran wasn’t complying.

Even though literally nothing has happened between then and now with respect to the deal itself, President Trump today declared Iran “not in compliance” in the course of his vacation at a golf course in New Jersey.

Again, he offered no details on what he’s threatening or what he’s demanding, though he did condemn President Obama for making the deal in the first place, reiterating how opposed he is to the nuclear deal in general.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Mr. President, a word, please: you seem to have learned everything you know about Iran from those who want to see it "neutralized" as an existential threat to Israel; but only with American blood, and American money.

Therefore, your hatred and suspicion of the current government appears to be very ill-founded. Yes, it is a limited, Islamic democracy; but you have to give the post 1979 Iranians some credit here; there is a Constitution, which respects the rights of minority religions, such as Christianity, Judaism, and the Baha'i faith.

To date, Israel has utterly no Constitution whatsoever.

And if you might possibly want just a little, tiny bit of reality to creep into your views of Iran, I strongly suggest that you watch the following video, shot by a charming, Jewish videographer, about the state of Iranian Jews. And I have three words for you here: they are
thriving!!

In the course of trying to structure the narrative around soaring tensions with North Korea, the Trump Administration has made major efforts to play up North Korea as an imminent threat, and the possibility that North Korea might attack as a realistic possibility.

And yet, realistically, most analysts agree that if a war does happen, it would be the US attacking North Korea, and not the other way around. This grim possibility necessarily comes with a question: can the US, having attacked North Korea and started a calamitous war, claim it was done in “self defense“?

Obviously they can, and would, try to do so. Some officials are already try to build a legal case that North Korea is a special case and that US military action would be justified, which only adds to concerns that a US attack might be forthcoming.

Webmaster's Commentary:

I am watching the Faux crawl, stating that Guam is preparing for a potential attack from North Korea, even though North Korea has only stated that it was going to do a missile test in the vicinity of Guam, which is far from stating that it was about to stage an attack against it.

In the next couple of weeks, and definitely before the BRICs meeting in China, which starts on the 31st of this month, were I a betting woman, I would not bet against an horrific false flag, to be blamed on North Korea, and off we go, into an ill-advised, and ill-considered war against it.

The Government of Bhutan on Thursday refuted Chinese foreign ministry claims about Thimpu telling Beijing that the trilateral border stand-off area in Doklam in the Sikkim sector is not Bhutan's territory.+
A top Chinese diplomat Wang Wenli had claimed that Bhutan had conveyed to Beijing through diplomatic channels that the area of the standoff is not its territory.

Wang, who is the deputy director general of the Department of Boundary and Ocean Affairs in China's foreign ministry, reportedly conveyed this information to a visiting Indian media delegation on Wednesday.
She, however, did not provide any evidence to back her claim, which has been strongly denied by Bhutan.

Official sources in the Bhutanese Government told ANI over phone, "Our position on the border issue of Doklam is very clear. Please refer to our statement which has been published on the web site of Bhutan's foreign ministry on June 29, 2017."

Webmaster's Commentary:

This standoff over a disputed border between India and China could get out-of-control ugly, very quickly.

And it is complicated by the fact that last year, the US strengthened its defense ties with India:

IF a major shooting war between these two nuclear armed countries happens, the US government, potentially, will be expected to provide India military support against China in this dispute; the situation is dicey in the extreme right now.

Russia has urged North Korea to steer clear of using force and instead opt for “maximum restraint” as Pyongyang’s feud with neighbor South Korea simmers.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made the plea, addressed to “all sides involved” in the conflict’s resolution, during a meeting with his North Korean counterpart in the Philippines Monday. Lavrov’s comments, paraphrased by Russia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, come as he confirmed that Russian President Vladimir Putin will discuss North Korea further with Chinese President Xi Jinping in a meeting next month.

China and Russia are North Korea’s only neighbors besides South Korea. Russia has so far not taken a hard stance on the dispute. Moscow’s strategy has largely reflected that of Beijing, unquestionably North Korea’s most important trading partner.

Webmaster's Commentary:

A memo to Serge Lavrov: as you are aware, the BRICS summit runs from 31 August to 4 September of this year.

A recent revelation, albeit quietly by choice, has been trickling under the popular western-dominated news radar. This under-reported, to the point of outright censored, exposé, has to do with Israel secretly providing weapons and military assistance to Khalifa Haftar, commander of the Libyan National Army (LNA), one of the factions in the so-called Libyan Civil War.

Yet, despite recent reports establishing Israel as a supplier of war materiel and air power support to LNA-Haftar, there has not been a peep from either the United Nations or the Western media outlets. Here are a few excerpts from this highly significant revelation:

Khalifa Haftar, the military commander who controls the east of the Libya, has reportedly been receiving Israeli military aid following meetings with Israeli intelligence that were allegedly mediated by the United Arab Emirates.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Israel definitely has its "eyes on the prize" of access to Libya's oil, which almost has to be the quid pro quo for these Israeli weapons to be flowing to Haftar's people.

Deputy Director of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent “SARC” Branch in Raqqa Dina al-Asa’ad said as cited by Sana that the shelling of the National Hospital in Raqqa by the coalition with phosphorus bombs occurred on Thursday night.

Dina al-Assad reported that the warplanes carried out 20 combat sorties and targeted the hospital’s power generators, vehicles and wards.

She further said that the hospital was rendering medical services to over 100,000 population of Raqqa city, adding that ISIL was not present at all at the hospital.

In the meantime, Head of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent Fowaz al-Asaf announced that over 65 government facilities, including sugar company, have thus far been destroyed in the offensive of the US warplanes and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in Raqqa.

Field sources reported that 30 civilians have been killed and several more have been wounded in the phosphorus bomb attacks on the state and children’s hospitals in Raqqa.

Webmaster's Commentary:

I am thoroughly ashamed to be a citizen of a country so completely complicit in the commission of war crimes, like the bombing of hospitals, from Yemen to Syria. The following are images of what white phosphorous bombs do to its victims:

The same intel “folks” who brought to you babies pulled from incubators by “evil” Iraqis as well as non-existent WMDs are now peddling the notion that North Korea has produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead able to fit its recently tested ICBM.

That’s the core of an analysis completed in July by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Additionally, US intel believes that Pyongyang now has access to up to 60 nuclear weapons.

On the ground US intel on North Korea is virtually non-existent – so these assessments amount to guesswork at best.

But when we couple the guesswork with an annual 500-page white paper released earlier this week by the Japanese Defense Ministry, alarm bells do start ringing.

The white paper stresses Pyongyang’s “significant headway” in the nuclear race and its “possible” (italics mine) ability to develop miniaturized nuclear warheads able to fit on the tips of its missiles.

President Donald Trump’s White House is being put in the awkward position of having to choose sides between major donors and its own senior staffers. On Wednesday night, a right-wing, pro-Israel lobby group funded largely by the Adelson family — which also gave millions to Trump’s presidential campaign and inauguration — launched a broadside attack against National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster.

The Zionist Organization of America announced Monday that it was undertaking a review of McMaster’s record on Israel, according to an “exclusive” story in the right-wing website, Breitbart. On Wednesday, the group released a statement calling for McMaster to be reassigned from the National Security Council because, according to the ZOA, he “purged from the NSC those officials who were carrying out President Trump’s policies of combating Iranian and radical Islamist transnational threats.”

Webmaster's Commentary:

Translation: American Zionists are very angry that Mc Masters hasn't moved anywhere quickly enough to their liking in declaring Iran in violation of the P5+1, as a prelude to a US-led war against it.

Remember; Israel wants its alleged "existential enemy" in the Middle East "neutralized", but only with American blood and American money.

China will prevent the US and South Korea from carrying out strikes on North Korea and trying to overthrow the leadership there, but will remain neutral if Pyongyang launches missiles at American targets first, the state-run Global Times said.

Beijing should make it clear that “if North Korea launches missiles that threaten US soil first and the US retaliates, China will stay neutral,” the Global Times wrote.

But if the US and its ally South Korea take on Pyongyang and try to “overthrow the North Korean regime and change the political pattern of the Korean Peninsula, China will prevent them from doing so,” the paper stressed.

Following North Korea's threat on Wednesday to fire ballistic missiles over Japan toward Guam, it was only a matter of time before Japan - which overnight said it has the authority to shoot down any such projectile above its territory - took appropriate steps, and according to the Nikkei, the Japanese government is starting to deploy Patriot missile interceptors in its western regions ahead of a North Korean launch.

Because of recent media frenzy over nuclear explosives and ballistic missile tests by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, a.k.a North Korea), and US President Donald Trump’s angry threats in response that imply nuclear retaliation, I thought it might be useful to remind you of why nuclear weapons are obsolete as military tools for the United States.

Certain names in the following description are fictitious names to protect people's identities.

Fourteen year-old Peter Fanning (fictitious name) of Provo, Utah, made a surprising discovery. Lying in front of him, beside a steel culvert, was what he thought might be a parachute pack. He brought the strange object to his father who was replacing a flat tire on the family car a short distance away. The father notified the local sheriff of their find after returning home that afternoon.

It was soon learned that the Fannings had stumbled upon one of the four parachutes furnished to a lone gunman who had commandeered a passenger plane on April 7, 1972, in the Colorado skies.

Statements made by Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl during his five-year captivity by the Taliban will not be used in his court-martial trial, the US Army has said. Bergdahl is facing charges of desertion.

“The government doesn’t have the intention to introduce” the statements, Army prosecutor Major Justin Oshana said during a preliminary hearing Tuesday at Fort Bragg, according to the Fayetteville Observer.

Winning! It's the White House watchword when it comes to the U.S. armed forces. "We will give our military the tools you need to prevent war and, if required, to fight war and only do one thing -- you know what that is? Win! Win!" President Donald Trump exclaimed earlier this year while standing aboard the new aircraft carrier U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford.

The US reportedly has a plan for a preemptive strike on North Korean missile sites with bombers stationed in Guam, should Donald Trump order it. It is apparently viewed as “the best of all bad options” amid mounting tensions between the states.

An attack by Rockwell B-1 Lancer supersonic heavy bombers from Andersen Air Force Base in the US territory of Guam makes up a major part of the plan, senior acting and retired military officials told NBC news.

“Of all the military options … [President Donald Trump] could consider, this would be one of the two or three that would at least have the possibility of not escalating the situation,” retired Admiral James Stavridis, former Supreme Allied Commander Europe and an NBC News analyst, said.

Webmaster's Commentary:

How in the name of heaven can Admiral James Stavridis make this claim with a straight face?!?

Apparently, he and I have a very different definition of "escalation."

And what does he expect China to do, if President Trump orders this attack?!? Sit by with hands folded, and sing "Kumbyah"?!?

I don't think so.

And as someone who lives on a first strike target on Oahu, call me just a little nervous to see this escalation of tension with North Korea and China.

A British company hired by the US military to train Afghan intelligence officers spent $50million on high-end cars and paying the bosses' wives six-figure salaries.

According to a Pentagon audit, which was made public on Wednesday, New Century Consulting, blew $42,000 on automatic weapons.

The firm billed the US government for Porsches and an Aston Martin and also paid the 'significant others' of the firm's top executives six-figure salaries - despite there not being proof they did any work.

Henry Kissinger, a former secretary of state of the United States who often offers voluntary advice on matters of geo-politics, has suggested that the US and Europe should sustain their direct aggressive engagement in parts of the world they do not belong to and work to restrain other countries.

As President Donald Trump vents his frustration with the United States' "losing" strategy in Afghanistan, the "notorious mercenary" and Blackwater founder Erik Prince has seized the moment to offer his favored alternative: privatize the war.

The plan, this literal colonialism, would be very similar to Blackwater’s approach in Iraq, where the private contractors had significant influence on US policy. It will potentially open the door to deadly abuses and murders by unaccountable forces, like those seen in Iraq.

Ronald Neumann, who served as the US Ambassador to Afghanistan from 2005 to 2007, has echoed these concerns in an interview with mainstream media: "There's a bad record of contractors and human rights abuses. There's no legal structure to govern this."

A US Navy destroyer sailed within 12 miles of an artificial island built by China in the South China Sea on Thursday, a "provocation" that threatens another angry response from the Chinese government and further complicating President Donald Trump’s efforts to align the Communist Party in his pursuit to find a diplomatic resolution to the North Korean crisis.

As Reuters reports, the USS John McCain (yes, he the Senator has a ship named after him) passed by the Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands in what US military officials justified as yet anohter “freedom of navigation” operation, the third since Trump took office. Over the past six months, the US has grown increasingly bold, or provocative as Beijing calls it, by sending aircraft and ships to contested waters in the South China Sea to the anger and frustration of Beijing.

Webmaster's Commentary:

That the US government continues to annoy Beijing with these moves, at a time (if they wanted a peaceful resolution at all) when they desperately need China on board to stop North Korea's weapons program, leads me to the conclusion that the Unhinged Surveilled States of Amerika is preparing, ultimately, for a war against China, to destroy the value of the yuan before the American economy comes crashing down.

Unfortunately, what those in the bowels of power in DC seem to conveniently forget, is that the US military doesn't have the weaponry, the money, the troop strength, or the manufacturing to insure a positive outcome to a war against China in the short term.

In the latest escalation between two nuclear powers (aside for the US and North Korea of course), the Indian Army has ordered the evacuation of a village close to the Doklam India-Bhutan-China tri-junction amid to a standoff between Indian and Chinese solders, India's News 18 reports. This takes place just days after, as we reported earlier this week, China turned the war threat amplifier up to '11' by threatening India (in an article published a Chinese state-controlled newspaper) that it could conduct a "small-scale military operation" to expel Indian troops from a contested region in the Himalayas.

Webmaster's Commentary:

This could get very nasty, very quickly.

And it is complicated by the US and India having enriched and upgraded their mutual defense relationship last year.

This means that if China and India's dispute hits the shooting war phase, the US government will be treaty-bound to assist India, even while it desperately needs Chinese help to resolve the crisis with North Korea.

While most of the Trump Administration opposes the president’s efforts to come up with some pretext for withdrawing from the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran, Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley has appeared to be on board with the idea, even declaring Iran in violation of the deal in June, shortly before President Trump grudgingly admitted they were in compliance.

IAEA inspectors continue to confirm Iran’s compliance with the P5+1 deal
President Trump has suggested he’s going to claim a violation next time, and Haley is reportedly planning to visit the IAEA in Vienna later this month, with the visit expected to focus on Iranian compliance. The IAEA has affirmed Iran remains in compliance monthly since the deal went into effect.

Webmaster's Commentary:

This is a brilliant demonstration of Ms. Haley serving her Israeli masters by attempting to destroy the P5+1 accord with Iran, as a prelude to a US war against it.

She is probably the most completely scientifically unqualified American President Trump could have possibly chosen to attempt to pick holes in what the IAEA has continued, in its scientific capabilities, to claim about Iran completely complying with the P5+1 agreement.

Please remember; Israel would like nothing better than the extermination of its alleged existential enemy in the Middle East, Iran; but only with American blood and American money.

BP: According to the Washington Post, U.S. President Donald Trump has decided to end the CIA’s covert program to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels battling the government of Bashar al-Assad. What’s your assessment of this move?

Webmaster's Commentary:

So, it appears that absolutely nothing has really changed in Syria, with regard to the US arming the jihadists there, even though it was alleged that President Trump ordered this practice stopped last month.

It seems that the CIA is absolutely not listening to the White House on this issue, and if, in fact, what Mr. Papadopolous is saying is true, it would seem that President Trump needs to yank CIA Director Pompeo's chain right now, and very severely, on this issue.

Last Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump signed new sanctions into law against Russia, Iran, and North Korea. The legislation was supported so overwhelmingly in Congress that President Trump’s ability to veto the legislation was rendered completely ineffective.

Even anti-interventionist Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard voted in favor of the bill, once again proving that Republicans and Democrats always find common ground when it comes to beating the drums of war against sovereign nations who have taken very little unwarranted hostile action — if any — towards the United States.

But these are just sanctions, not acts of war, right? There’s nothing wrong with economically bullying other countries into submission over non-compliance with the current global order, right?

Not quite.

Webmaster's Commentary:

It appears to me that those in the bowels of power, in the Unhinged, Surveilled States of America, are looking for some war - any war - to happen ahead of the complete financial collapse this country is looking at experiencing, most likely, relatively soon.

No one in the region, not even North Korea, wants another war. But Kim Jong-un is going to push it as far as he can to get what he wants: recognition from the United States that North Korea is a nuclear power, and legitimacy at home as a ruler who can defend his people against the big, bad US.

In some ways, Trump’s threats play into the North Korean calculus: Kim Jong-un wants his people to believe that the United States continues to threaten the very existence of North Korea. That fearmongering brings the North Korean people together, and justifies the regime’s diversion of precious resources into building nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles.

Webmaster's Commentary:

It's that "uncertainty factor" of one stupid mistake, one clumsily missed communication, that could tip the region - and by extension, the US military, into a shooting war.

The US military isn't in any position right now to strike North Korea with the kind of campaign that would be needed to bring battlefield success and would need weeks, if not months, to sort out the logistics, analysts say.
Mark Hertling, a retired US Army general and CNN analyst, said the tens of thousands of US civilians, many of them military dependents, would first need to be evacuated from South Korea.

"How do you get the families off the peninsula? You have to do that first," he said.
The US would also need to add to its forces in the region in what Hertling called "a reinforcement of shooters." These would include US Navy ships and submarines armed with cruise missiles, plus Air Force bombers that could operate out of bases in Japan or Guam, he said.

"Some of these are in places in the region, but not enough to decapitate North Korea in terms of their artillery," Hertling said.

Webmaster's Commentary:

IF Kim Jong Un actually decides on a first strike against American assets (or elements in his military decide for him that this is to be done), the US government may well not have "months" to prepare.

India's diplomatic efforts to end a seven-week military standoff with China have hit a roadblock, people briefed on the talks said, prompting Chinese state-run media to trumpet rhetoric of "unavoidable countermeasures" on the unmarked border.

China has insisted that India unilaterally withdraw its troops from the remote Doklam plateau claimed by both Beijing and Indian ally Bhutan.

India's diplomatic efforts to end a seven-week military standoff with China have hit a roadblock, people briefed on the talks said, prompting Chinese state-run media to trumpet rhetoric of "unavoidable countermeasures" on the unmarked border.

China has insisted that India unilaterally withdraw its troops from the remote Doklam plateau claimed by both Beijing and Indian ally Bhutan.

(For a graphic on China-India border dispute click tmsnrt.rs/2wnxWuV)

Webmaster's Commentary:

A war between these two nuclear-armed countries could be an absolute and complete disaster for both their people, and surrounding countries.

Let us hope sane heads will prevail in New Dehli and Beijing, and that this issue gets resolved quickly and quietly, without bloodshed.

The Israeli army will soon put into use new artillery cannons purchased from local defense company Elbit rather than a German firm over concerns that the latter would restrict the cannons from firing cluster bombs.

The use of cluster bombs is banned by an international treaty signed by more than 100 countries, including Germany, because of the high rate of civilian casualties and injuries associated with them. According to a now-retired Israel Defense Forces officer familiar with the matter, Israel was concerned that the Germans would not give the army the “complete independence” it sought in the use of the cannons. In light of this, the Defense Ministry recommended purchasing Israeli cannons, without inviting bids.

The South Korean firm Hanwha Techwin was also approached but ultimately rejected because the cannons it manufactures are semi-automatic, while the Artillery Corps wants an automatic weapon that has a faster firing rate and requires a smaller team to operate.

Webmaster's Commentary:

When left unexploded, and infants or toddlers try to play with them, these cluster munitions will tear tiny children into shreds; but for the IDF, when it comes to Palestinian infants and toddlers, of course, that doesn't matter.

A respect for the sanctity of all human life has seemingly not evolved among European and European-diasporic states. Consider the answer to the question: “How many September 11ths has the United States caused in other nations since WWII?”

More than six years after the US-led "liberation" of Libya, that North African country remains an open wound symbolizing the abject failure of US and European interventionist foreign policy.

The obsession of the US neocons, whether Democrat or Republican, for "regime change" and other frivolous foreign military interventions has been consistently and eloquently criticized by the likes of Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-SC), Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) and not least by former Congressman Ron Paul, to name but a handful.

Since our last Libya report of 27th July over a week ago, the ceasefire "brokered" by French President Macron at his Paris Summit with Libyan National Army head Khalifa Belqasim Haftar and UN-backed prime minister, Fayez al-Sarraj is in reality nowhere to be found.

Webmaster's Commentary:

The Libyan people need to determine their own destiny, and this should not be manipulated by any outside national forces, period, end of discussion.

What happened to them, after Ghaddafi was assassinated by Western forces, was utterly criminal.

Several times a week, US officials threaten military action against North Korea. Even on days when they don’t media reports of tensions with North Korea continue the narrative that a huge war could erupt at any moment.

All these rumors of war are a big windfall for the Pentagon’s number one arms supplier, Lockheed Martin, as they are reporting that the surge in talk about North Korea’s missiles is leading to a surge in interest in their missile defense systems.

On the one hand, the reliability of any missile defense system is questionable under even optimal conditions, as evidenced by US failures. On the other hand, those Lockheed systems are very expensive, and have a really good profit margin on them.

North Korea can significantly increase its nuclear stockpile if a light water reactor under construction at its Yongbyon nuclear complex goes into operation, a U.S. nuclear scientist warned, urging Washington to restart negotiations with Pyongyang.

North Korea has so far used a 5-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon to make plutonium for nuclear weapons, roughly at a speed of one bomb worth of plutonium a year. But since a few years ago, the North has been building a larger-scale light water nuclear reactor that experts say could give Pyongyang enough plutonium to make about five or six weapons a year.

The Transatlantic/North-Atlintic elites weren’t happy about Putin making those statements. You could tell it by the reactions the Western officials gave him. As such, NATO’s then- Secretary General Japan de Hoop Scheffer called Putin’s speech “disappointing”. US senator John McCain (who was a presidential candidate) said that “Moscow must understand that it cannot enjoy a genuine partnership with the West so long as its actions at home and abroad conflict so fundamentally with age core values of Euro-Atlantic democracies” (yeah, you’re not democratic if you think differently and if you don’t do what the US dictates you to do).

In fact, the only thing that makes North Korea a threat is their nuclear capability — made possible by the Clinton and Bush administrations.

These two administrations played key roles in helping the late Kim Jong-Il develop North Korea’s nuclear prowess from the mid 1990’s onwards.
Former US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld was on the board of technology giant ABB when it won a deal to supply North Korea with two nuclear power plants.

According to the 2003 report from SWI, the Swiss-based ABB told swissinfo that Rumsfeld was involved with the company in early 2000, when it netted a $200 million (SFr270million) contract with Pyongyang.

The ABB contract was to deliver equipment and services for two nuclear power stations at Kumho, on North Korea’s east coast.

However, Rumsfeld was simply taking the baton from the Clinton administration, who, in 1994, agreed to begin replacing North Korea’s domestically built nuclear reactors with light water reactors.

The Pentagon’s top weapons supplier, Lockheed Martin, says that customers’ requests for missile defense systems are rising, and North Korea’s continued threats as well as the US reaction may be responsible.

Acquiring missile defense systems is at the top of some countries’ to-do list, as interest has risen over the last 12 to 18 months, the vice president of Lockheed’s Air and Missile Defense business, Tim Cahill, told Reuters.

As President Donald Trump vents his frustration with the United States' "losing" strategy in Afghanistan, the "notorious mercenary" and Blackwater founder Erik Prince has seized the moment to offer his favored alternative: privatize the war.

"A private air force and a bombing app! From the people who brought you Blackwater; an even more disturbing idea."
—Cal Perry, NBC News

According to a report by Katrina Manson of the Financial Times on Monday, Prince has drafted a proposal—dated August 2017—that would hand the longest war in American history over to a private "band of experienced sergeants," who would fight alongside U.S.-trained Afghan forces.

Prince, Manson writes, "proposes a two-year plan for fewer than 5,000 global guns for hire and under 100 aircraft, bringing the total cost of the U.S. effort to turn round a failing war to less than $10 billion a year."

Webmaster's Commentary:

President Trump, a word, please: this excrement sandwich that is the Afghanistan war, is absolutely not your fault; you inherited this from the Bushbama administrations.

From the beginning, without committing far more troops than Bush or Obama would ultimately be willing to commit, this war was unwinnable from the get-go.

There is utterly no military metric by which this US/NATO occupation of Afghanistan can be considered a "success", unless you want to define "success" as the huge heroin crop which funds various "off the shelf" activities of various US "alphabet soup agencies, over which Congress does not have oversight:

And 16 years on, we are still in Afghanistan, because the Pentagon is pathologically incapable of figuring out how to win this, and because the various alphabet soup agencies are thoroughly addicted to that money from the poppy production.

So, what is to be done?!?

First, reject Prince's plan as though it were the plague.

Secondly, get our American and NATO troops out of Afghanistan as quickly as is safely possible, then negotiate with whatever government is left standing in Kabul for the pipeline and mineral rights.